Do we need an RCT to establish the worth of chaplaincy?

Einstein once said, “Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.”

A friend of GeriPal, and prior guest, Guy Micco commented today that we need an RCT for chaplaincy is like the idea that the humanities need to justify their value in medical training: “It’s like being told to measure the taste of orange juice with a ruler.”

On the other hand, all of our guests agree that chaplains are often the most vulnerable to being cut from hospital and health system budgets.  These studies are important.

Today we have a star-studded lineup, including Lexy Torke of Indiana University, who discusses her RCT of a chaplaincy intervention for surrogates of patients in the ICU, published in JPSM and plenary presentation at AAHPM/HPNA.  To provide context, we are joined by Karen Steinhauser, a social scientist at Duke who has been studying spirituality for years (and published one of the most cited papers in palliative care on factors considered important at the end of life, as well as one of my favorite qualitative papers to give to research trainees).  We are also joined by LaVera Crawly, a physician turned chaplain, now VP of Spiritual Care at Common Spirit Health (and author of another of my favorite and most cited papers on palliative care in the African American Community).

We dive into the issues of measuring spirituality, chaplaincy, the need for an expanded vocabulary around spirituality, spiritual assessments, spiritual history, LaVera’s journey from physician to chaplain (listen to her compelling answer to the magic wand question at the end).

For further context, please check out our prior podcast on spirituality, and this discussion of the RCT by Lexy that I helped moderate for Transforming Chaplaincy.

Thanks to my son Kai for playing the guitar part in 5/4 with strange chords on Riverman by Nick Drake!

-Alex